DNA from "In Cold Blood" killers may help solve 1959 Florida murder

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A Florida detective trying to crack a 53-year-old unsolved murder case will ask a Kansas judge for permission to exhume and extract DNA from the bodies of two notorious killers made famous in Truman Capote's 1966 true-crime novel, "In Cold Blood."

Sarasota County Sheriff Detective Kim McGath told Reuters she believes the two men convicted for the 1959 murder of Herbert Clutter, his wife and two children in Holcomb, Kansas, might be responsible for a similar killing one month later of a family in Osprey, Florida.

Capote's celebrated book about the Clutter case, written in a new style associated more with fiction than journalism, is often credited with spawning the nonfiction novel genre.

The case of the Florida family, the Walkers, has long stumped investigators. Cliff Walker and his wife and their two toddler children were shot to death in their home near Sarasota, Florida.

McGath, who spent four years reviewing half-century old investigative files on both the Clutter and Walker murders, said the exhumation of killers Richard Hickok and Perry Smith, who were executed in 1965, could provide key clues. Read More

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With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick O’Connor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998. Their goal was to cover all aspects of true crime: Read More